Greetings, seekers of fine, funky, nearly free forty-fives! Today, as part of my ongoing effort to deliver 20 great Thrifty tracks in just twice that number of days, I present a track that immediately jumped off the turntable as a bona-fide WINNER. Released in 1968, this A-side saw modest success, charting at #11 on the soul charts, and peaking at #64 Pop. Whatever. All I know is that — as far as I can tell — it’s mysteriously unavailable on CD these days.
Which is a shame, ’cause it’s a funky tune of the highest caliber. Seriously, I totally dig this one, and it was a thrill to discover it, mouldering in a stack of throw-aways I discovered a few weeks ago. My musical life is definitely richer for having found it.
But here’s today’s funky, Ray Charles-inspired question: Are there any blind pop/soul/rockers who suck? Even Jose Feliciano’s got something going on that’s a damn, uh, sight better than, say, Journey. I’m just askin’.
I look forward to your responses.
HVB
Cool song! This would have been a good song for some manly ’60s British band to cover, like The Small Faces. (The Who would give this a go too, but they wouldn’t be as successful.)
Your question made me laugh. I apologize to our blind readers for doing so, but in the spirit of equality, I am confident in saying Jeff Healy was blind and terrible.
Ouch! Mod, you’re right. Healy did (does) kind of suck.
Isn’t Ronnie Milsap blind?
Wow. What a find! According to the always reliable Wikipedia, it charted 64 in the US in ’67 and 11 on the R&B charts. Although there is no mention of it on Allmusic anywhere. And not available on CD. Wait, whaaaa?
To be fair, Stevie Wonder has intermittently sucked pretty bad over the last 25 years or so.
Sure, Stevie’s sucked for a long time, but that’s after having created a couple of hundred years’ worth of tremendous music.
They was a blind guy on American Idol a year or so back, he really sucked. But then, they all suck.
Yes! I was jus’ talking about this subject with another musik-geek the other day. Whatever happened to the blind PoP stars?? It seemed like they were everywhere back in the ’70’s.
The singer for the band “Enchantment” is also blind. I got their “best of” out of a bin years ago and enjoyed the 1st track – “If you’re ready, here it comes” as a bit of 2nd rate EW&F, or some such thing. The rest, i did not care for. I wouldn’t go so far to say that they sucked – and the dude can definitely sing – but I didn’t care for it too much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T02tMWkzDNk
Interesting! I had the exact same experience when I bought a used copy of “The Best of Enchantment.” Too funny!
I put that song to good use on a Mixx CD, and gave the original away.